


Homecoming

by LittleMissWolfie



Series: After [3]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Female pronouns for Pidge, Galra!Keith, M/M, Post Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-12
Updated: 2016-09-12
Packaged: 2018-08-14 14:22:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,846
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8017384
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LittleMissWolfie/pseuds/LittleMissWolfie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>His heart aches a little. He didn’t remember much of his own mother, and Thace’s stories could only do so much. Would she have welcomed him back as tearfully as Mrs. Holt welcomes her children? Or would she be appalled at the half-breed she’d given birth to?</p><p>Or;</p><p>Keith spends time with the Holt family.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Homecoming

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, this is shit, but I felt so bad about the pause between updates and I wanted to get this out to you guys quickly. College is taking some getting used to, but I'm not doing anything this weekend yet so I should be able to work on the next installment, which will hopefully be out sooner than this one was.
> 
> As always, I'd like to thank my reviewers. As always, AlphaofDarnkess left kind words, as did Ididntsignupforthisshit, Jessicat, NightingalePumpking, panffin, and DorothyGale123. I'd also like to thank those of you that have followed me on tumblr. I hope to be more active with After there, possibly posting annotated versions of the fics or comments that my friends have made, but I make no promises!
> 
> On with this piece of shit. I hope you can stick through it!

Keith has mixed feelings about returning to Earth.

On the one hand, he’s happy for the rest of his team. They’re all anxious to go home to their families. Pidge and her father and brother are buzzing with excitement, Hunk’s packing up all the food he can take to show his moms, and Lance in particular is very vocal about how  much he’s missed his clan. Even Shiro is happily planning to show Allura around the area of Japan he’s from.

On the other hand, Keith has nowhere to go. His shack in the desert has surely been overtaken by this point, and he has no family to speak of. With no home to return to, no family to call his own, he resigns himself to a lonely week in the castle with only Coran and Red to keep him company.

He’s sitting in Red’s hangar, waiting for Pidge to come for a last minute check up before she leaves with her family. Most of the team is already home; Allura is taking her time getting to Arizona, where the Holts live, and after that Coran will drop them off in Tokyo. Hunk went to Hawaii first, where the locals held  luau for the defenders of the universe. Lance was next, giving Pidge a purposely sloppy kiss to piss Matt off before he left. 

He  hears footsteps in the hall, but there are three sets instead of one.  _ She must have her father and brother with her,  _ Keith realizes. He may not know much about family, but he knows how long four years is. He’s heard her sobs when she thought no one else was awake. He’s seen her red-rimmed eyes in the dim lights of the hangar while she worked herself to exhaustion. He’s seen her battle her demons while he battled his. She may be with Lance, but she and Keith have a different kind of dependency on each other.

Sure enough, the three Holts all pop their heads in the hangar at the same time. “Hey, Keith,” Pidge greets absently. “How’s Red today?”

Keith allows himself a smile. “She’s a little touchy. It’s been awhile since we got to fly.”

“Green’s the same way. Blue and Yellow are actually a little relieved, I think.” She laughs a little. “They’re always so lazy.”

“What about Black?”

She hums. “Hard to say. She’s hard to read.”

Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Matt and Commander Holt trade confused looks. He can’t blame them; the thought of robots having personalities is still new to them.

“Hey there, Red,” Pidge addresses the lion, matting her leg. “Can you open up for me?”

Red complies, allowing Pidge to begin the check up. Matt’s sticking to her like glue, asking her all sorts of questions about how the lions work and the process she goes about during her their check ups. Commander Holt smiles fondly at his children and, instead of joining them, leans against the wall next to Keith. “How are you today?” the older  man asks.

Keith, at a loss for what to do with a fatherly figure, shrugs. “Okay, I guess. It’s a lot quieter without Lance being annoying.”

Commander Holt shifts a little. “Speaking of Lance,” he begins, “is he a good man?”

Keith blinks. Of all the questions he expected him to ask, that wasn’t one. He knows the power he has in this moment If he wanted to, he could ruin Lance for the rest of his life. No matter how much Pidge loves him, she probably wouldn’t want to go against the family she’s just about to reunite. If pressured, she would break it off with Lance, at least for a while, and it would destroy him. 

But Keith sees the way Lance and Pidge look at each other. After the years they’ve spent together, neither would be happy separated from each other. He doesn’t know how they’re all going to tolerate being away from the Castle of Lions and the rest of the team. If Pidge and Lance don’t have each other, Keith is afraid they’ll self-destruct.

So Keith takes a deep breath and says, “Lance is one of the bravest people I know. I can’t count the number of times he’s saved my life. And, sir,” he adds, turning his gaze up to the older man’s face, “he loves your daughter more than words can begin to describe. They’re actually a little gross about it sometimes, but it’s love.”

Commander Holt takes a minute to process his answer before nodding once, slowly. He look to Keith as if a heavy weight has been lifted from his shoulders. Then he starts, as if he’s realized something, and says, “When are we dropping you off at your home?”

Keith feels the back of his neck heat up. “I, uh…”

Matt looks over his shoulder at them, evidently bored with the long process, and tilts his head. “I was wondering that, too,” he says, and Keith mentally slaps himself.  _ Brothers are off limits, _ he repeats to himself.  _ In every single one of those movies Lance watches, brothers are off limits. He’s not cute. He can’t be cute, because he’s Pidge’s brother, and brothers are off limits. _

_ Besides, _ a nasty part of his brain adds,  _ he’d never want you if he knew your secret. _

It wasn’t a secret, particularly, but he didn’t advertise his Galran paternity. His father fought for them before his death, which helped alleviate some of Keith’s shame, but he knows how the universe would react if they found out that one of their heroes is a descendent of their oppressors. Only the residents of the Castle of Lions knew the whole story, as they discovered it alongside him, and he’d like to keep it that way for as long as possible.

“I, uh,” Keith stutters again, “I’m staying here, with Coran.”

Now Pidge pops up, and all three Holts blink owlishly at him.

“What?” he says defensively.

\---

Pidge’s mother is clearly where she and Matt get their looks from, if not their coloring. Her lovely face is blotchy with emotion as she races to wrap her family in a hug, her blue eyes  watery and her cropped blonde hair disheveled. “Don’t you ever do that to me again!” she says, and Keith isn’t sure if she’s talking to one of them in particular or to all of them.

His heart aches a little. He didn’t remember much of his own mother, and Thace’s stories could only do so much. Would she have welcomed him back as tearfully as Mrs. Holt welcomes her children? Or would she be appalled at the half-breed she’d given birth to?

After what seems like quite a long time to Keith, Mrs. Holt releases her family and turns her attention to him. “And who is this?” she asks of no one in particular, wiping tears from her cheeks.

Pidge, who’s still crying a little, says, “Mom, this is Keith, a friend of mine.”

“He doesn’t have anywhere to stay!” Matt adds helpfully. Keith kind of wants to wring his neck. “Can he stay here?”

Mrs. Holt looks him up and down critically, and he feels very much like a piece of meat up for sale. Then she smiles and wraps him in a hug much like the one she bestowed upon her family. “Of course you can,” she murmurs softly into his ear.

Keith pointedly does  _ not _ cry.

\---

The Castle of Lions departs a few hours later, after Mrs. Holt has been caught up on what’s happened the past four years and she made dinner for everyone. Hugging is apparently a thing for her, as everyone gets at least five before Allura, Coran, and Shiro are allowed to leave.

Now they have to deal with sleeping arrangements.

As Mrs. Holt starts to inflate an air mattress in Matt’s room, Keith feels a surge of panic. He doesn’t know if he’ll be able to control his Galran side at night in a strange place. If he shifts in his sleep, it’ll all be over.

So he comes up with a plan.

“Uh, Mrs. Holt--”

“Call me Elizabeth,” she interrupts almost immediately. 

“Elizabeth,” he amends, “Matt may not feel comfortable sharing a room with me.”

That makes Mrs. Holt pause. She turns her head to look at him, much like Matt a few days ago. “Why’s that?”

“I’m gay, ma’am.” Then, for added measure, “And I find him attractive.”

Her head tilts back and she laughs. “Maybe you  _ should _ sleep in Katie’s room, instead.”

Keith feels relief flood his system, followed by confusion. “Why did you laugh?” he asks as she deflates the mattress and begins folding it up.

“Because Matt would jump you himself if he heard what you just said.”

Keith’s neck goes red again.

\---

“I’m glad you’re here,” Pidge says late into the night as she sprawls across Keith’s back. “I don’t think I’ll ever be able to sleep alone again.” 

“I’m sure Lance will help you with that,” Keith deadpans.

She knees him in the side. “What about you?”

“What about me?”

A groan of frustration leaves her lips. “What are you going to do with your life now that the Empire isn’t a threat?”

After a pause, Keith says, “I dunno. I wanted to go back to the Garrison, you know? But they’ll room me with someone and they’ll find out about me and I’ll get kicked out again.”

“You don’t know that,” Pidge says weakly, because they both know that’s exactly what will happen.

\---

“Just live here!” Matt proposes the next morning at breakfast. They’ve been discussing Keith’s future plans and he admits he’d like to go back to the Garrison and plays his reluctance off as a fear of homophobia. “I lived in the dorms because I wanted to, but you could totally commute from here. Right, Dad?”

Commander Holt chuckles around a mouthful of eggs. After he swallows, he says, “You can’t just ask someone to move in, Matt. Keith may have somewhere else he wants to stay.”

Keith laughs along, ignoring how his chest constricts.

\---

It happens the day after.

His Galra side has been aching for days. He’s come to accept that sometimes his fur, ears, and tail need to pop out and breathe for a while. It’s been happening like clockwork every few weeks since his eighteenth birthday, when he came into his alien inheritance. He lost track for a while and is horrified when he feels that itch consume his entire body. He excuses himself from the dinner table, shooting a panicked look at Pidge, who nods in understanding and launches into an elaborate tale of the time they found themselves on a planet whose inhabitants looked just like humans except that their hands were feet and their feet were hands so he can dart up to the bathroom she and Matt share. Once the door is shut behind him, he lets himself go, allowing his purple fur to sprout out of his skin and letting his ears elongate. He winces at the uncomfortable feeling of his tail being pushed up against his pants, so he wiggles out of them so the fluffy appendage can trail out of the leg of his boxers.

He’s often compared reigning in his Galran side to wearing an ace bandage. The pressure isn’t unpleasant at first, but it eventually suffocates you, and the release from that pressure is an amazing feeling. He lets his muscles stretch pleasantly under his skin, feeling his spine pulled taut by his tail, and relishes in the feeling. His instincts command him to take his shirt off, because it’s too hot with fur and clothes, and he complies. It’s only his human dignity that keeps his boxers on, keeping him from being completely nude. He lets his body fall to the cool tile floor and stretch out. A purr rumbles in his chest. All he needs now is someone to scratch him behind the ears.

He loses track of time, which leads to his downfall. He’s about to fall asleep when he registers the sound of the knob jiggling and, horrified, realizes he never locked the door. He springs into action, scooping up his clothes and jumping into the shower, willing his fur to retract, but to no avail. It’s as if his Galran side is punishing him for keeping it under wraps the past few days since Commander Holt and Matt joined them by refusing to listen anymore. “Keith?” Matt calls as he slowly opens the door. He sucks in a confused breath. “Where’d he go?”

“He’s probably just sleeping,” Pidge replies, and Keith almost lets out a relieved breath. She’ll take care of it. “We all had a group Skype last night, so we were up pretty late. The only reason I’m still awake is because my sleep schedule is already blown to hell.”

Matt sighs, and Keith finds his body quivering with the noise. Another con of his Galran side is his lowered inhibitions. The cat doesn’t care that Matt is Pidge’s brother; it just cares that Matt is attractive, even with his thin arms and scarred body. He fights the moan that forms in his chest down so as not to alert Matt to his presence. “Well, Dad wants to take us shopping for suits for the big party, and we all need to get our hair cut. Can you go wake him up?”

From the way Pidge hesitates, Keith realizes they’re both screwed. “Uh, sure,” she says just a second too late.

“Katie,” Matt says, an edge in his voice. “What’s going on?”

“Nothing!”

“Why are you  _ lying _ to me?”

Keith senses the argument that’s about to unfold. He hates himself a little for causing this discourse. Pidge has been yearning to be reunited with her family from day one, and now he’s causing a rift between them because of his secret. “It’s fine, Pidge,” Keith says softly, and he hears both Pidge and Matt whip their heads toward the shower. “You don’t need to lie for me anymore.”

He opens the shower curtain.

\---

Keith finds himself facing Commander Holt, Elizabeth, and Matt shortly after. He’d had to quickly dress, shoving his clothes over his protesting fur and squeezing his tail back into his jeans. His ears are drooping in shame and spine hunched. Pidge is next to him, thank everything that’s holy, but he can just  _ tell _ he’s going to get kicked out of the Holt family home. He finally had something good going for him on Earth and he’s blown it.

“So,” Commander Holt says a bit awkwardly after a long pause, “you’re Galran?”

“Half,” Keith breathes. “My mother was human.” He takes a deep breath and begins the tale Thace told them when he first found out he had a son. “She was a researcher for a Korean lab. She met my father when she was exploring a forest one night after she saw a huge flash of light that turned out to be one of his ship’s rockets. She wasn’t scared of him and just kept coming back to visit him. Then, one day, she stopped coming, and a few weeks later a militia came after him. He felt slighted and vowed to never trust a human again.”

“What happened to your mother?” Elizabeth asks, concern flooding her voice.

Keith shrugs. “I don’t know. She died when I was a baby, and somehow I got sent to the American foster system instead of the Korean orphanages. I’ll never get to hear her side of the story, I guess.”

“Why didn’t you tell us?”

He looks to Commander Holt, whose face is unreadable, and feels dread pool in his stomach. “Your family was so nice to me, and I didn’t want you to kick me out.”

The pause that follows seems like forever. Keith’s throat tightens and his spine hunches further. He can tell that Pidge is getting worked up from her stiff form beside him and he tries to will her to calm down without speaking. Thankfully, she gets the message and sinks back into the couch’s cushions. He braces himself for the worst.

“Why the hell would we do that?” It’s Matt that says that, speaking for the first time since he saw Keith’s purple fur. When he’d fallen silent, Keith assumed it was from disgust. Apparently not, however, as Matt was looking him square in the eye with a warm expression. “It’s not like all Galrans are bad! You helped save the universe and Katie obviously trusts you. There’s no reason to assume we’d kick you out.”

“But--”

“Is this the reason you wanted to stay in Katie’s room?” Elizabeth asks. She has a happy smile on her face. 

“Uh--”

Commander Holt finishes the conversation with, “You’re always welcome to call our home yours, Keith.”

He feels tears well in his eyes, but he blinks them away. Pidge bumps their shoulders together playfully, and he can sense the joy radiating from her.

Maybe he can finally have a home, a family.

**Author's Note:**

> Like I said, it's not very good. I find Keith very hard to write, because he internalizes so much of his shit that I can't make him emote the way I want him to. The reason nothing is mentioned about Keith being half-Galran in other stories (*cough*besides me just thinking about it while writing*cough*) is that none of the other fics depend on it being a plot point. It will mostly come up in the predominantly Matt/Keith parts. I also hope this helps explain how Keith and Matt's relationship develops, since Keith basically moves in with the Holts at the conclusion.
> 
> Like I said, the next installment should be both sooner and better than this one. I hope I haven't completely turned you off from the series. See you soon!
> 
> (And if you haven't already, you can follow me at littlemisswolfie.tumblr.com)


End file.
